* It has now been a full month since Samoa Joe was abducted by ninjas. I’m sorry I keep harping on this point, but I seem to be the only person alive who cares.

* The show kicks off with AJ and Ric coming out to bitch about stuff. Gee, that’s new.

* You know why Ric Flair is awesome? Because the man will punch himself in the face until he bleeds while screaming “I HATE JEFF HARDY,” and that’s just in a promo kicking off the show. The man looks like a goddamn maniac.

* Y’know, Jeff Hardy is fine, but his involvement in this AJ Styles feud with Hogan and Abyss is beyond pointless, especially when Jeff is screeching something about flying to the ring on the backs of his “CREATURES OF THE NIGHT!!! AAUUUAAAOOOOWWW!”

* Oh, apparently Beer Money are heels now. In case you missed that memo. There had to be a memo, because it certainly wasn’t developed on television.

* No. Just, no. I can’t even bear to type this. Team 3D & Spike Dudley vs. Nasty Boys & Jimmy Hart. I honestly retched in the middle of that. Not even drugs would make someone want to watch the Nasties in the ring, because drugs that good do not exist. Whoever keeps booking the fucking NASTY BOYS on a national television show is truly mentally deranged, or actively hates the world.

* Angelina Love looks like a hooker. Not that I would know.

* Scott Hall is actually wearing a gray t-shirt with the word “WOLFPAC” drawn on it in black Sharpie. I am not making this up. Nash bets Hall a wad of cash that he can’t last five minutes in the ring with him. This is a safe bet, since I doubt Hall can stand upright for five minutes without blacking out from alcohol poisoning. And remember, last week we saw Eric Young beat X-Pac clean in less than two minutes. This is actually going to be on the PPV. Again.

* The Pope is still selling a beating he took two weeks ago. This is why he’s a better worker than John Cena will ever be. I still absolutely hate that Nigel McGuinness is getting made to look like a complete idiot, but I guess that’s his role now.

* Ken Anderson jumps Angle after the match and cuts him open with the Army medal. Again. This is absolutely stunning to me. It used to be that TNA would book this shit backwards, but now they’re booking it…backwards and circular? Why would anyone want to see this resolved on a PPV? Seriously, tell me. This feud is OVER. No, really. It’s over. It’s DEAD.

How dead? They had Angle kill Anderson dead two weeks ago with a chair, kill him again the next week, and then had about fifty Army soldiers stomp on his prostrate corpse after Angle got his medal back. You can’t finish a feud more decisively than that. Anderson looks like a complete clown now, but even worse, we’re right back to square one here. Now Anderson has the medal again, busted Angle open with it again, and this whole thing will repeat. We’ve officially wasted a month of time booking this feud, resolving nothing, and now you’re booking it again. What idiot wrote this garbage?

* So Sting just chills out in the rafters all night?

* Hogan calls the Stinger out, and the program slows to a complete halt while Sting slowly takes the stairs and heads to the ring. No joke, this is about three minutes of dead air.

* Bischoff Segment Count: 5. He books Hernandez vs. Beer Money, with Jeff Jarrett as the referee. He calls it Jeff going “back to the future.” I’m not really certain I follow the metaphor, but I’ve always had a problem thinking fourth-dimensionally.

* I refuse to watch Hot Tub Time Machine. Seriously. Fuck your movie.

* Nash and Hall proceed to have a predictably dire match. The way Hall shambles around the ring, you might as well have him in a rubber Godzilla suit and it’d be more compelling wrestling. X-Pac hits the ring in the middle of the match, chop-blocks Nash, and handcuffs him to the rope. Hilariously, the ref refuses to call for the bell, causing even Taz to question what the hell the fucking point of this match was. I laughed out loud when the ref just shrugged at the audience, like even he couldn’t believe the reasoning here. Hall and Pac grab the $25,000. This is unbelievable.

* The A-plot of this show is that Bischoff (Segment Count: 7) wants to shave Foley’s hair because, y’know, that’s his real problem. Foley rebels, knocks Bisch out with the mandible claw, and behold, the silver fox is embaldened. Incredibly moronic stuff afoot here.

* Shannon Moore looks like a complete dork. Howls of derisive laughter when he mentions some “Book of Dilligaf” and screams “GOOGLE IT, WOMAN!!”

* The Motor City Machineguns are dressing like some feeble proto-Road Warriors. Can’t they just get beyond Thunderdome? The Young Bucks have an Ultimate-X match against them at the PPV, raising the question on whether or not it’s better to look ridiculous or just generic.

* It’s not a good sign when even the commentators wonder aloud why the hell AJ and Jeff are having a match.

* You know how not to book your world champion? By having him lose, clean as a sheet, the week before the PPV to a guy who’s been around exactly 5 minutes.